A primer on New York State public school pensions

A primer on New York State public school pensions provided by Capital Region BOCES:

New York state’s school district employees outside of New York City generally belong to one of two public pension systems – the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) and the New York State Employee Retirement System (ERS).

The pension benefit that individual retirees receive depend on various factors, including: which system they are in; their salary; the date employment began; years of service; and age at retirement.

Pension systems have three sources of revenue: employee contributions, employer contributions (those from state and local government and school districts), and the investment returns on these contributions.

Employee contributions are based on the date employment began. Employees hired before July 1976 were not required to contribute. Those hired since then have had to contribute 3% of their salaries for at least a portion of their careers; and new employees will contribute 3% or more for the duration of employment.

How are the contributions of state and local governments and school districts determined?  Employer contributions are determined according to an accounting model that takes into account the future liabilities (pension payouts) of the system and the value of the fund. The state sets employer contribution levels each year in order to ensure that the systems are fully funded in relation to future obligations.

Market conditions are a major factor in determining pension costs.  The contribution rates of the state pension systems are set annually by accounting for the value of the funds in relation to future obligations. Therefore, as markets fluctuate—and cause the value of the ERS and TRS investments to change—so do the rates of employer contributions to the systems. Thus, the economic slowdown of recent years has been a major driver of the increases in pension costs to school districts and other governments in New York state.

…
As pension costs rise student services are cut

In our local district, pension costs have risen more than 50% over the last two years and now account for 7.2% of the total budget, up from 5.1% in 2010-11.  This has meant ongoing cuts in student services as taxes are diverted to pay for pensions.  The trend is up, and by 2015 pension costs are expected to eat up 35 percent of property tax collections.

The good news

New York is one of a handful of states that entered the current economic downturn with a fully funded pension system, according to a 2010 study from The Pew Center on the States. Many states have funded their pension systems at levels far lower than their future obligations require, and some have skipped payments altogether— but not New York.

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• ‘Exploding pension costs are the single biggest threat to local government’s ability to deliver needed services’ (costofcollege.wordpress.com)

New York public school mandate relief petition launched by BEST4NY

Westchester County taxpayers are letting legislators know that escalating state-mandated costs are eroding educational opportunities for our children.

A coalition of tax watchdog groups from 16 Westchester school districts is setting its sights on an elusive target: the complex web of state rules and regulations that force districts to spend tax money.

The new coalition, calling itself BEST4NY, is launching an online petition for local relief from state “mandates.” It is holding a public rally at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Greenburgh Town Hall.

“We felt like people who are concerned about the neighborhoods and villages and towns should be involved in this,” said Roger Scheiber of Hastings-on-Hudson, one of five executive committee members running the new group. “We realized that these school budgets are so complex and that once the tax cap got passed, the big issue, the really big issue, became mandates.”

BEST4NY, with the tagline “ Better Education and Smarter Taxation for New York”, is modeled after NYSUT, the New York teachers union and political lobbying organization that is a statewide organization with local chapters in different school districts.  In this way, BEST4NY could be viewed as a union for taxpayers and parents.

Widespread agreement that we need mandate relief

Growing numbers of school, municipal and business officials — not to mention Gov. Andrew Cuomo — are calling for the state Legislature to remove some of the hundreds of state rules that force communities to spend money. But the Legislature has been slow to reach agreements because there are so many mandates, great and small, and most are supported by special interests.

School districts say that mandates account for 15 to 20 percent of their overall budgets, dictating spending on everything from data collection and curriculum changes to pension contributions and construction.

Pensions are out of control

I’m glad to see that pension contributions are included in this petition since skyrocketing public pension costs are “the single biggest threat” to local schools’ ability to deliver educational  services for New York children.  In our local district, pension costs have risen more than 50% over the last two years and now account for 7.2% of the total budget, up from 5.1% in 2010-11.  This has meant ongoing cuts in student services as taxes are diverted to pay for pensions.  The trend is up, and by 2015 pension costs are expected to eat up 35 percent of property tax collections.

The Wicks Law and the Triborough Amendment are two other burdensome mandates

… the Wicks Law, which requires districts and local governments to use multiple contractors for construction projects; and the Triborough Amendment, which requires that public-employee union contracts stay in effect until a new contract is reached, perhaps reducing the incentive to negotiate.

“There is no traction in either house to repeal the Triborough because the unions oppose it,” said Castelli, who has sponsored bills to reform and repeal it. …

The  BEST4NY online petition calling for mandate relief:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/mandate-relief-now.html

Related articles

• Skyrocketing public pension costs are eroding educational opportunities for New York children (costofcollege.wordpress.com)

New York’s flawed teacher evaluations are a step towards a ‘choice-based educational system’

Many school principals and teachers are protesting the new teacher evaluation system scheduled to be phased in this year in New York State, believing it has been rushed into place.  They have concerns that it is flawed and that its introduction has been ”confusing, contradictory and, frankly, disastrous.”  From what I’ve seen, I would agree there are serious problems, ranging from questionable state test data to the diversion of scarce resources for implementation.  However, I wonder if many parents are like me, willing to go with this flawed system because we’re so frustrated with things as they are, including the tenure system and the practice of laying off teachers based solely on seniority.

Walter Russell Mead writes about the growing public pressure.

But just because current methods of teacher evaluation are, to say the least, imperfect, doesn’t mean teachers can escape growing public pressure to show results. Teacher unions would like for virtually all teachers to have lifetime tenure and for evaluation to play little or no role in their lives. Principals don’t want parents nosing into administrative decisions or complaining that their kids are getting stuck with subpar math teachers. Pointing to the deep and real flaws in everything from standardized tests to score students to individual teacher assessments is, among other things, a way to stave off public pressure for more accountability in the schools.

The public wants a look inside the “black box” of the American school. Some parents are too ignorant, too dysfunctional or just too laid back to care, but increasingly parents want to make sure that their kids are getting the best available teachers—or at least avoiding the turkeys.

This pressure isn’t going away; school districts and teachers are going to have to live with it. Demand for parental choice is growing, and it will grow further as more educational opportunities arise. Between charter schooling, homeschooling, and new forms of online education, there are now opportunities that simply weren’t available thirty years ago.

He predicts this is one step on the road to school choice.

Ultimately most parents are going to insist on the right to choose which schools their children attend. Schools will have to provide information about their teachers and their success in order to attract pupils. Today’s crude and often unfair bureaucratic evaluation methods are a baby step in the direction of a choice-based educational system. More and better steps will come.

Change will come, but I’d really like to know how many generations will it take.

Skyrocketing public pension costs are eroding educational opportunities for New York children

Skyrocketing public pension costs, the single most burdensome state-imposed mandate, are slowly but surely eroding educational opportunities for the children of New York.

Our local school district’s pension costs have risen over 50% in the last two years.
During that same time, instructional salaries have increased only 6.9% and the entire budget only 6.0%. The actual dollar amount of additional pension costs has surpassed that of salary increases.  Meanwhile, most other expenses that affect students directly, including sports, music and instructional staff, have been cut to compensate for soaring pension costs.

This same scenario is being played out at public schools throughout the state.  At Pelham, a nearby school district, their pension costs have also increased 50% in the last two years.

Pelham schools’ budget plan cuts jobs, adds $2.3M; benefits blamed
… budget calls for $65,523,020 in spending, an increase of $2.3 million from the current year. The superintendent pinned much of that increase on ever-climbing health care and pension costs.

More:

In New York City … pension costs now eat up one in every six tax dollars that city residents pay — and 12% of the entire city budget. That’s more than the operations of the Police, Fire and Sanitation departments combined.

Deficits Push N.Y. Cities and Counties to Desperation
Pension costs are a particular problem. The stock market collapse of 2008 decimated public pension fund investments, and municipalities are now being asked for greater contributions to make up for the losses. The impact has been drastic: Three percent of New York property tax collections were used to pay pension costs in 2001; by 2015, pension costs are expected to eat up 35 percent of property tax collections.

Our school district’s pension costs as a percentage of the total budget have grown from 5.1% to 7.2% over the last three years.  This is not a good trend.  If they continue to rise as expected, today’s relatively modest cuts to student services will be looked upon as the “good old days”.

Meanwhile, in their highly promoted mandate relief advocacy campaign our school leaders have chosen to ignore pensions.  Instead, they have highlighted those mandates that affect our students directly, like special education.  They make no mention of the pension mandate, which is the one having the most negative impact on our children.

Conveniently, pension costs were exempted from the state’s 2% property tax cap on property tax increases recently imposed on school districts.  This carve-out was a nice special treatment for teachers.

Wages and benefits outpacing inflation combined with reduced student services.  Is this the future for New York public education?

Effects of 2% tax cap on New York public school budgets

In the wake of New York’s new 2% property tax cap, Lower Hudson Valley taxpayers are learning that “not a single district is likely to seek a cap override when budget votes are held May 15″.  According to school officials, it’s simply too risky to propose a budget that would exceed 2% growth.

Under the new system, districts must keep the increase in their tax levy — the amount of money raised in taxes — below their cap. The “starting” cap for each district is 2 percent, but several exemptions will give most districts slightly higher caps in the 2 percent to 3 percent range.

A new twist is that if a district has two budget proposals rejected by voters, it will have to freeze its property tax levy at this year’s level — requiring deep spending cuts. So if a district goes for an override and does not get a 60 percent super-majority, it will have only one chance to pass a budget under the cap….

“If you try for a super-majority and lose, you only get one more chance and could wind up with a zero (percent tax levy increase),” said Anne Byrne, Nanuet’s school board president.

Taxpayers have no appetite for bigger increases.

It was clear from superintendents’ responses that given the economic climate — and with all the attention heaped on Cuomo’s much-publicized cap — there is a consensus that trying to leapfrog the cap in its first year could be a bad move.

“I have met with our Citizens’ Budget Advisory Committee, held Superintendent’s Coffee Hours, and held a Community Budget Forum, in addition to many internal meetings with administrators, staff and the Board of Education,” Mount Pleasant Superintendent Susan Guiney wrote, “and it appears that while everyone does not wish the school district to endure any reductions in staff or programs, everyone feels that we should respect the tax cap levy and present a budget that complies.”

Is this cap on spending sustainable?

Going forward, many officials said, it will be increasingly difficult to stay under the cap without making staff and program cuts that no one likes.

“It will be next to impossible to continue cutting our budget by these unsustainable amounts,” Putnam Valley Superintendent Barbara Fuchs said.

Schools are working on short-term solutions.

Meanwhile, many districts are pushing legislators to eliminate costly state mandates for transportation, special education and other areas that would produce short-term savings.

But ignoring unsustainable pension cost increases

Meanwhile, they seem to be ignoring the single most costly mandate that is hurting education – skyrocketing pension expenses.  In my local school district, pension costs alone have risen over 50% in the last two years.  Meanwhile, the entire budget has only increased 6%.  Talk about unsustainable.

You can read the entire article below the break.

2012 New York Regents ‘English exam appears to be the easiest in memory’

Hey college professors, the student who wrote this sentence in the short response section of the New York English Regents exam may be coming to your classroom next year.

These two Charater have very different mind Sets because they are creative in away that no one would imagen just put clay together and using leaves to create Art.

According to Michael Winerip of the NY Times, this writer has a “pretty good shot” of passing the New York English Regents exam, an important criteria for graduating high school.  After reviewing the questions and and grading standards, Winerip concludes that officials have opted to dumb down the state tests.

The current state English exam appears to be the easiest in memory.

It’s hard to get zero credit

From what I can tell, it would be very hard to get zero credit for the short response questions of the test.  Here’s the criteria from the scoring guide.

Score Point 0

• is off topic, incoherent, a copy of the task/texts, or blank
• demonstrates no understanding of the task/texts
• is a personal response

According to these guidelines, the response example given above is coherent and deserves a score of 1.  Based on other examples in the teacher’s scoring guide, it appears that as long as the student makes some reference to the text in question and demonstrates even a little understanding of it, he will receive at least a one-point score.  There are no examples of “incoherent” responses in the guide, a possible indication that the bar is set very low for this category.

I remember looking at the state tests for elementary students and coming to a similar conclusion.  In particular I found that although it was easy to give some credit for each individual rubric factor and end up with an acceptable score, it was possible that the resulting paragraph in its entirety would hardly have qualified as an example of competent grade-level writing.  Funny how that worked.

UPDATE:  Catherine at Kitchen Table Math teaches college composition and says these children have been cheated, and so have we.

Comprehensive English Regents Examinations

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• Teacher intervention inflates New York Regents exam scores

Teacher intervention inflates New York Regents exam scores

New York has a long-standing problem with inflated state test scores, including repeated citings of questionable grading practices but no concrete action to address the problem.

In 2003-4, the testing company CTB/McGraw-Hill rescored a sample of Regents exams and found that its scores were generally lower than the scores awarded by the schools, a sign that score inflation was taking place, according to a 2009 audit of Regents scoring by the state comptroller’s office….

… 2004 e-mail in which a state education official cited statistics that showed how teachers statewide appeared to be helping some students over the bar….

And in 2005, a team of the State Education Department’s own experts rescored some June Regents exams and found a “significant tendency for local school districts to award full credit on questions requiring scorer judgment, even when the exam answers were vague, incomplete, inaccurate, or insufficiently detailed,” the comptroller’s audit reported, adding, “These inaccuracies have tended to inflate the academic performance of students and schools.”

Teacher intervention is skewing the normal statistical distribution of grades

… about three times as many students scored exactly at the passing mark than at each one of the scores below it, a result not in keeping with a standard statistical distribution.

A New York State deputy commissioner of education:

“Obviously, teachers look for points to get kids to pass.”

Despite concerns about conflict of interest, teachers still score their own students’ or school’s test.

“We are relying more than ever on state exams — to measure student achievement, to evaluate teacher and principal effectiveness, and to hold schools and districts accountable for their performance,” Merryl H. Tisch, the Regents chancellor, said last month, in support of tightened grading practices. “If we’re going to use the tests in these ways, we need to be absolutely certain that our system is beyond reproach.”

EngageNY.org – Regents reform agenda website for New York educators

John B. King Jr., the new state education commissioner, released back-to-school messages Tuesday and unveiled a new website — engageny.org — to provide information on the state’s reform initiatives.

He urged parents to ask their children, “What did you learn today? What does that mean?” And he asked educators to ask themselves: “Where are we in terms of our goals and where are we in terms of our students’ college and career readiness and how do we get there?”

Those are excellent questions educators should be asking.  It’s better than simply asking how innovative, how engaging or how technologically advanced they are.  These questions are good, but of secondary importance.

EngageNY is an evolving, collaborative platform for educators. As the Regents Reform Agenda moves forward across the state, we want you to be able to access and share resources that work for you.

A bit more about us: New York’s educators are always investigating better ways to improve what is being taught, how it’s being taught, and what to do about obstacles to student learning.

It was with these concerns in mind that we designed the Content Areas that Network Teams, administrators, principals, and teachers will use to facilitate change in schools:

1. Common Core standards
2. The Data-Driven Instruction cycle (DDI) and School-Based Inquiry (SBI)
3. Teacher/Leader effectiveness (performance management systems)

As reform priorities grow and evolve over time, EngageNY will grow and evolve, too – so that you always have the resources you need to ensure success in your school.

Schools will use tracking and more nonfiction reading to improve achievement

Everything old is new again.

New York released English and math state test scores for grades 3-8 yesterday.  Since the state toughened standards, overall pass rates have dropped.  As a way to try to improve sores, some schools are trying different strategies, including tracking students by skill level and using more nonfiction reading material.  I wish our local schools would do this.

Jessica O’Donovan, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in White Plains, said despite the relatively low pass rates — largely due to tougher standards, she said — the district is confident its students will be prepared for Regents exams and college.

The district is implementing various changes in teaching and intervention strategies, O’Donovan said.

A program called Intervention Block regroups elementary students based on skill level for more tailored instruction. At the middle school level, teachers regularly meet to craft common assessments and analyze data….

Tougher standards took a hit on scores in the Valhalla school district. About three-quarters of students in grades three through eight met or exceeded standards in English and math, but pass rates fell in both subjects at nearly every grade level….

Myers said the dip in her district’s scores, and those of districts statewide, was due to the last test having more difficult items on it than the exam in 2010, which itself was toughened. She also said certain items were used on the tests for the first time.

Still, Myers said, the district is working to improve performance.

Instructors are using more nonfiction books and analytical questions to improve higher-level comprehension. In math, she said the district would analyze the results to see if a specific type of problem accounted for the decline in scores.

“We have to be focused on a good solid curriculum and targeted intervention,” Myers said.

Nonfiction books provide background knowledge that improves reading comprehension and help prepare students for the type of reading they will need to do in college.

66 percent of Lower Hudson Valley students met testing standards in 2010-11 – LoHud.com

New York leads with oversupply of lawyers

Just how bad is the job outlook for lawyers? According to our quick analysis, every state but Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., and Nebraska produced more — in some cases, far more — bar exam passers in 2009 than the estimated yearly openings for lawyers in those states….

As is the case in every state, not all of these new grads will practice in New York. But the data still points to a surplus….

On the national level, there were nearly twice as many bar exam passers (53,508) in ’09 than openings (26,239).

Everything I’ve read indicates that the job situation has only deteriorated since 2009.  Going into debt to attend law school can be a very risky proposition.

Data for each state, including median wages, is at EMSI.

ADDED, relevant advice:  Do Not Go to a 3rd or 4th Tier Law School Unless You Are ‘God’s Little Snowflake’